Monument to the Brazilians

The men of the FEB, the Brazilian Expeditionary Force, arrived in Italy in July 1944. On 12^th December 1944, under the command of General Mascarenhas, they launched an assault on the German defences at Monte Castello, in unfavourable weather conditions. The troops took substantial losses (146 dead) in addition to those already suffered during unsuccessful assaults. For example, the Americans and South Americans of the 45^th Task Force had previously suffered 416 fatalities during the assaults of 24^th and 29^th November. The German stronghold on the Gothic Line was manned by the infantrymen of the 232^nd Trident Division and made up of veterans from the Russian front and young recruits from Frankfurt. It would fall definitively between 21^st and 22^nd February 1945 as part of Operation Encore.

Designed by Brazilian sculptress Mary Vieira, the monument, entitled Liberation, was erected in 2001 in La Guanella, a hamlet in the municipality of Gaggio Montano. It commemorates the Battle of Monte Castello and the many Brazilian soldiers who fell so that the ‘impregnable peak’ could be conquered. It consists of a black marble base and two enormous semicircles 15 metres in diameter. A plaque bears the names of the fallen.